Visa Europe Helps To Lift Visa Inc.’s Total Payment Volume by 47%

By Jim Daly
@DTPaymentNews

You thought Visa Inc. was big already? Boosted by Visa Europe and solid growth in the U.S. and some other regions, the world’s largest card network’s credit and debit card payment volume grew 47% in the quarter ended Sept. 30.

Foster City, Calif.-based Visa Inc. on Monday reported financials for its fourth quarter of fiscal 2016. The quarter was the first that included Visa Europe, the bank-owned former licensee of the American company that Visa Inc. acquired in June for about $20 billion.

Boosted by $467 billion from Visa Europe, Visa Inc.’s worldwide payment volume for the quarter jumped 47.1% on a constant-currency basis to $1.86 trillion from $1.26 trillion a year earlier.

Visa Europe ranks a solid number two in volume among Visa Inc.’s six regions, trailing only the U.S., which had total payment volume of $767 billion. Asia-Pacific came in third at $406 billion. The other three regions all had quarterly volumes of less than $100 billion: $91 billion for Latin America and the Caribbean, $69 billion for Central Europe-Middle East-Africa (CEMEA), and $57 billion for Canada.

Payment volume growth rates, on a constant-currency basis, ranged from 12.7% in CEMEA and 10.7% in the U.S. to 5.4% in Canada. The financial report did not include numbers for Visa Europe in fiscal 2015’s fourth quarter.

Visa Europe contributed 9.57 billion payment transactions to Visa Inc.’s total of 36 billion payments, a 52.4% increase from 23.6 billion transactions in fiscal 2015’s last quarter. Transactions processed on the VisaNet network grew 41.1% to 25.9 billion from 18.4 billion a year earlier.

The average combined Visa Europe credit/debit card ticket is $48.80, about 5% smaller than the U.S. average of $51.48.

In the U.S., Visa’s credit card payment volume rose 18.7% to $409 billion, partly because of portfolio conversions, while debit card volume rose only 2.7% to $358 billion.

For the full fiscal year Visa Inc. posted total payment volume of $5.76 trillion, up 20.8% on a constant-currency basis. The yearly figure included only the fourth quarter from Visa Europe. In the U.S., total payment volume hit $2.93 trillion, up 10.1% from $2.66 trillion in fiscal 2015.

Not surprisingly, Visa Inc. remained solidly profitable in the fourth quarter. Operating revenues increased 19.3% to $4.26 billion, and net income jumped 27.7% to $1.93 billion.